Thursday, July 12, 2007

Enough with Insults: Bring on the Ninja action!

A few years ago, after a late-night, post-SDCC drunken conversation, my brother and I came up with some ideas that would eventually turn into the Ninja Wolf mini-comic. I actually wrote and drew a total of four issues of that comic, along with some other small projects, like the 24-hour comic I did at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center. But Ninja Wolf has been dormant for a quite a while as I worked on more scholarly writing.

Until now!

My friend, the brilliant artist Todd Casey, has redrawn my fourth Ninja Wolf story in his own inimitable style (and the pages posted here are from his issue--pages 6 and 8 to be precise--click on the images to enlarge). Now titled Ninjawolf our sample comic was handed out at the MoCCA art festival, and we're debating whether or not to do more stories with the Ninjawolf and Squidhunter characters, or to move on to a couple of other projects we have in the works.

For those of you who don't know much about the Ninjawolf and Squidhunter concepts, here's who they are, in a nutshell: Ninjawolf was an orphan raised by ninjas, then subsequently raised by wolves. Squidhunter is a former millionaire playboy who battles undersea robots shaped like aquatic beasts. They're best friends, but Squidhunter is kind of an arrogant, selfish jerk. And by "kind of" I mean "totally."

In the back cover of our preview issue, I include a section labelled "Coming in future issues..." and here's what it says:

• In issue #38, "Holiday Miracle," Squidhunter, betrayed by Ninja Wolf, abandons his Aquadome on a quest for the real meaning of Christmas. He learns the most important lesson of all: Christmas isn't about presents or sledding. It's about kicking people really hard.

• In issue #54, "Showdown 1985," Ninja Wolf learns the true origin of the wolfpack who raised him as a boy, and he begins to question the intentions of those gentle beasts. Also, Squidhunter adopts a koala, then mails it to his cousin when he learns that it can't swim or shoot a grappling gun.

• In special landmark issue #75, "Seaweed Apocalypse," Squidhunter returns from space to discover that all of Earth's aquatic vegetation has been replaced by evil robot duplicates. With Ninja Wolf's help, Squidhunter commandeers Time Capsule Alpha and launches into an uncertain future. A special back-up feature spotlights Koala Boy's adventure in Canada with special guest Hulk Hogan!

So, do you guys want to see more of Ninjawolf and Squidhunter or what?

About Me

Timothy Callahan is an educator and a writer. He has written books, like Grant Morrison: The Early Years, and edited books like Teenagers from the Future. He used to co-host the weekly Splash Page podcast, but now he mostly spends his free time creating role-playing games like CRAWLJAMMER and the upcoming SUPERWAR.